Recently, people have become more and more dependent upon battery-powered devices in their business and personal lives. Such devices as wireless telephones, digital cameras, personal digital assistants and laptop or notebook computers have increasingly become pervasive in many people's lives.
Society has also become quite mobile with business and personal transactions often taking place in coffee shops, bars, lounges, airport and social clubs, Internet cafés and other locations—particularly locations supporting Internet “hot spots”. This has promoted further convenience and growth in the use wireless devices.
Frequently, such battery powered devices are powered by NiMH or NiCad batteries or other battery technologies which require periodic recharging. For people working outside a traditional office setting, this frequently means carrying extra batteries and charging devices to assure that they always have enough power to carry out their normal business activities. This can be inconvenient; so many people opt to make regular stops at coffee shops or the like to take advantage of recharging opportunities. It is common to see travelers sitting on the floor at an airport to take advantage of one of only a few electrical outlets available to recharge batteries of a wireless telephone or notebook computer.
Unfortunately, heretofore, it has often been difficult to secure a seat at a busy coffee shop or other location adjacent a wall with an electrical outlet. Such seats—particularly at an Internet hot spot or Internet café are frequently the first to be taken due to the availability of outlet access. Since many buildings housing such establishments were built long before anyone envisioned the need to provide power outlets to patrons, retrofitting the establishment to make more such outlets available can be expensive. Moreover, for tables situated in an open floor area without an adjacent wall, the task is often impossible or prohibitively expensive.